Page 48 of Surfside Sisters

“I’m taking you out to dinner!” Keely said. “We need to celebrate.”

“Darling, could we order in? I’ve got to work tomorrow and I’m exhausted.”

“Sure. Absolutely.” Keely’s mind was spinning. “But let’s open a bottle of champagne, okay?”

“Will prosecco do?”

“Fine.” She followed her mother into the kitchen and while Eloise got down the flutes, Keely dug around inside the refrigerator to find an unopened bottle of prosecco.

Keely opened the wine and poured.

“Here’s to you, my novelist daughter!”

They clicked glasses and drank.

“I’ve got to make plane reservations for tomorrow,” Keely said. “Where’s my phone?”

“Have you told Tommy? Have you called Isabelle?”

Keely paused. “I’ll call Tommy. I don’t want to tell Isabelle yet. I don’t know why. I guess it doesn’t seem quite real.”

“Ask Tommy over to celebrate,” Eloise suggested.

“It’s his poker night. Sacred. And I’ve got to let this sink in…I think I’m dreaming.”

While Keely made the flight and hotel reservations, Eloise called Sophie T’s for two Greek salads and one small anchovy and artichoke pizza. As always, they put the salads in bowls and the pizza on plates, but Keely discovered she had no appetite.

“I’m too excited to eat,” she told her mother. “I’m nervous about what to wear in the city tomorrow. I’ve got to check on my clothes.”

“In that case, I’ll eat the entire pizza,” her mother said, with a grin.

Keely whirled around in her room, pulling out three “good black dresses,” trying them, finding her best heels, choosing a bag, digging out a small suitcase. She found her travel bag and filled it with toothpaste and brush, dental floss—where was her small jar of face cream? She couldn’t find it! And her Jo Malone perfume that Tommy had given her for Christmas? It had disappeared, too! Her hands were shaking, her thoughts running on top of each other and falling into a void, like lemmings off a cliff.

Her cell rang.Isabelle.

Should she tell Isabelle? How could she not tell her? Isabelle was her best friend. And now the luck was tilting in Keely’s favor, in a gigantic way. She was going to have a novel published!

“Isabelle, hi!”

“Keely, we broke up.”

Isabelle’s speech was shattered with sobs. She was hyperventilating, too. Keely could tell.

“Isabelle. Take a breath. It’s okay. Whatever it is, it will be okay.” She dropped onto her bed. This was going to be a long conversation.

“Gordon broke up with me,” Isabelle wailed. “For good. He’s going to marry someone else.”

“Oh, Izzy, I’m so sorry. But he was kind of—”

“You don’t have to insult him to make me feel better. I’ll never feel better. He asked me to give him back his ring! God, I feel sorejected.”

Keely watched the minutes on her watch tick by as she listened to Isabelle cry. She said the usual worthless platitudes, but nothing would help Isabelle, not now. She absolutely wouldn’t tell her about her novel.

“I’m coming home tomorrow,” Isabelle sniffed. “Will you meet me at the boat?”

“I can’t, Isabelle. I have to go off to, um, Boston, dental appointment. But should you come home? You’ve still got a couple of months at the colony.”

“I don’t give two figs about the damned colony! It’s all ridiculous, I haven’t gotten anything published. I’m on my fifty-third draft of my hopeless novel. I want to come home and stay. I need my friends, my family, my life. I need to rethink everything.”

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